Cane River Quotes
"Although she passed away twelve years before I was born, her presence is firmly imprinted in our family lore."
"Laughter and fun surrounded Grandma ’Tite, they say, describing the flawless skin, thick chestnut hair, high cheekbones, thin sharp nose, and impossibly narrow waist."
"But at the same time I was envious of Emily’s ability to stare down the defeats of her life and aggressively claim joy as her right."
"I loved my world, jolting awake every morning, impatient to begin the day."
"I began to develop a nagging and unmanageable itch to identify Philomene’s mother."
"The search for my ancestors moved beyond a pastime and became an obsession."
"Revealed bit by bit from mounds of documents and family stories, I connected the line backward between these women of my family, daughter to mother."
"They were flesh-and-blood women who made hard choices, even in oppression."
"It defies description in words, this bond I have with Philomene and her ability to reach across four generations to me with such impact."
"In piecing together events from personal and public sources, especially when they conflicted, I relied on my own intuition."
"Suzette felt the weight of the rosary alongside her lucky strip of cowhide, safely sheltered in her apron pocket."
"Nicolas always spoke kindly to her at St. Augustine or when she saw him on his horse on the road."
"This Bordeaux caused a great deal of excitement in France."
"I hope I have captured the essence of truth, if not always the precision of fact."
"It was then that I resolved I would not allow Suzette or her family to be lost from memory again."
"Without Louis, Oreline had lost yet another of the male protectors she needed to marry well and take her place in Cane River Creole society."
"As a Catholic, I give to the Church of St. François de Natchitoches the sum of 10 [piasters] 'un fait payée.'"
"I ordain that three of my slaves be freed after my death: Jeanne, Negress; Marie Pamela, griffe; and Marie Apoline, mulatress."
"It's yours, M’sieu. Another boy, I'd say, by the kicking."
"I can't go into debt trying to keep the two of them in the same place. It's likely they'll both end up on Cane River somewhere."
"Family is everything, Philomene. Do not ever forget that. A tree without roots cannot survive."
"All you have to do, Madame, is give me the go-ahead."
"I'll be seventeen come harvest. I do what I'm told, Madame. I can't do more."
"My time is past. Now we must secure the best position for you that we are able."
"You go looking for trouble in the wrong place with that talk and they’ll give it to you."
"In some ways, it was a blessing that she did not get outside much anymore."
"The estate of Louis and Françoise Derbanne was officially dissolved."
"Philomene, sometimes Suzette gets beside herself over color. His brown doesn’t make him bad, and your yellow doesn’t make you good."
"Other people can tell you that you're nothing, that you have nothing, not even your own flesh and blood."
"But I cared each week when Oreline confided during her visits how homesick she was for Rosedew."
"If you freed him now, he could have a different life. He's your blood."
"I don't know what happened to either one of my boys I left in Virginia. They would be your kin, your uncles."
"I do not forget how you looked after me when my father died," he said.
"All I know is that she said she will bring Gerant."
"Did I ever tell you about the Christmas party on Rosedew?"
"Philomene dropped Palmire’s hand and ran far enough ahead to face the two sisters."
"Rest yourselves on the porch," she said. "I already put some fresh greens from the patch on, and fatback."
"Philomene tried to get Suzette to imagine happier days, off in the future."
"The future was too heavy for her to carry. It was up to Philomene now."
"Philomene knew well the lay of the land along the banks of Cane River."
"They built to a fine luster together, like the silver she polished for first the Derbannes and then the Ferriers."
"Philomene wanted to go to Clement, so she could cradle her head against his chest."
"The days drifted, tumbling one into the other, full only of muffled sound, loss, and indifference."
"They were foolish to expect her to talk back to them, to respond to their words."
"Her days were drab and hard, and her nights were full to bursting with the silent grief that her isolation nourished."
"Still, she clutched at the image, trying to believe there could be a life less bruised than the one she was living now."
"She had a sudden urge to give in to the liberation of opening her mouth to talk, but nothing would come out."
"I believe God will provide, too, Mémère. Just that sometimes He needs help to remember who to provide to."
"What am I to do with a white man’s heart? I want his head, his mind."
"She was surprised each morning when she woke that she hadn’t died of her aloneness the night before."
"You better tell me what you came to tell me, stirring up old sadness like yesterday’s soup."
"It’s a story that bears telling, madame, but first, could I bother you for a little more to eat? I haven’t eaten for several days."
"Yellow John hesitated, as if he weren’t sure what to say next."
"Sometimes good came out of hurt, compensation came out of pain."
"We’re family, and we’ll find a way to take care of our own."
"My name is Jackson. I hope you see your way to carry the same name."
"We can work our own place better than we can someone else’s."
"My boy walked here all the way from Virginia. I hope so."
"I am the rock in your garden, Emily, and you are the bloom in mine."
"I understand the suckhole loneliness makes after love disappoints."
"If you love the children, protect us now, with land and money."
"We’ll have less land, but the soil around Emily’s new place is richer, the house bigger and already built."
"Be reasonable. I am your closest relative here. Two thousand acres cannot fall into hands incapable of overseeing it properly."
"We won't do any more business together, Antoine. There's no use working with a man you can't trust."
"It was like hitching up a butterfly to pull a plow."
"If I kill myself it will be for the trouble that my wife has given me for 10 years. Bury me in my garden near the asparagus plants."
"I am tired of hearing her quarrels and abuses of me."
"Without the children, I have nothing left in this world—not relatives nor friends."
"They can make me marry, but they can’t make me live."
"You never meant to put aside your colored family."
"The children you set such store by are an abomination before God."
"Your papa was a murderer, and your mama raised a fool who doesn’t know his place."
"It gets too hard to figure out what you need to do next unless you bring it back around to particulars."
"I can’t speak of him anymore. I can’t speak his name out loud."
"You fight just by drawing breath and sitting on your own property on Cornfine Bayou."
"The land rightly belongs in your hands, the right hands."
"We’ll go and talk to him. Make him see reason."
"You have to be careful, but I spit right in his wineglass."
"I’ve never told you about the gift I had when I was young, because I thought it had left me for good."